TRIGGERS

The key to managing anxiety and depression, is self-awareness. 

It is said that knowledge is power. I very much agree. I believe in knowledge. I believe that knowledge grants you control. It at least gives you the illusion of control. I understand intellectually, that control is oftentimes illusory and fleeting. However, managing my anxiety has always depended on managing the illusion of control. I convince myself that I am in control. I convince myself by gaining knowledge. 

Knowledge to me is the ultimate power. I expend a lot of energy figuring out how things work so that I can make it work for me. It takes me down the path of overthinking perhaps, but it also keeps me from spinning out. 

I hate being denied knowledge. I refuse to take things on faith. I bristle at being told to simply follow instructions. I refuse to be monitored. I am accountable to no one but myself. 

I don't see that as something to be changed. I can understand being accountable when it is a job that I am being paid to do. I refuse to be hounded into watching what I eat. I didn't join a gym because I didn't want this nonsense. I don't care if it's my best friend, I refuse to be watched and judged. It's not happening. I have enough of that to deal with. I am not subjecting myself to this. 

Just Me.  

A FRESH START

Tonight, goodbyes were said. 

Goodbye to the last decade of my life. 

Goodbye to colleagues that have become family. 

Goodbye to the place that had become a second home. 

This role has demanded a lot from me. I would like to think that I rose to the challenges that it presented. There were many challenges, systems I had to learn from scratch, by necessity. Operations that were full on. A restaurant full of people and a team of untrained staff. It was a hell of a time. We persevered. We overcame. I like to believe that I had something to do with that. I believe sometimes that things happen automatically around me. It's difficult for me to believe that I had anything to do with the success that restaurant enjoyed in the early days. 

Looking back even now, I can only see the flaws. I can only dwell on the hesitations and the swallowed criticisms. It is in fact easier for me to dwell on the fact that it went from that success to this downfall on my watch. 

I am grateful for this job. I came into it at a point in my life when I needed to believe that I was worth something. I needed to prove to myself that I could hold down a job because for the longest time, that was a deep seated fear within me. After all the trials in my life, that was a fear that never left me, until I took this job. I proved to myself that I could do something. Keep to a timing, run operations, plan operations. 

I am grateful for all the opportunities that I had with this job. I think in a lot of ways, I squandered quite a bit of it. However, on balance, I think that I gained more from this job that it took from me. 

Just Me!